Wave Induced Mine Burial and Sediment Transport in Coastal Environment: Wave and Sediment Transport Modeling Studies

The long-term goal of this work is to develop numerical simulation techniques for predicting wave-induced sediment transport and bed evolution in the coastal zone (order 10 meter depth outside the surf zone), at horizontal scales of tens of meters or less, and the scouring/burial around objects/obstacles (mine-like), partially buried in the bottom. This research was initially motivated by the Navy's need to improve mine countermeasures (MBP), in support of joint littoral warfare, for which a key paradigm was to locate a clear or low mine- and obstacle-density path. More generally the laboratory validated modeling tools developed in this work will help improve both our fundamental understanding of, and ability to predict physical processes governing wave-current-induced morphodynamic changes, in coastal and estuarine environments of active sediment transport (e.g., ripple migration). In the past year, our objective was to extend the capabilities, integration, numerical efficiency and ultimately predictive abilities of two coupled numerical models simulating wave-(current)-induced flows and sediment transport over the seabed and around partially buried obstacles. These models were: (i) a two-dimensional (2D) fully nonlinear and inviscid Numerical Wave Tank (2D-NWT; initially developed at the University of Rhode Island; URI; Grilli and Subramanya, 1996; Grilli and Horrillo, 1997), and (ii) a three-dimensional (3D) fully viscous Navier-Stokes, Large Eddy Simulation model, with imbedded sediment transport model (3D-NS-LES; initially developed at Stanford University, and coupled in collaboration with Prof. Street and co-workers; Zedler and Street, 2001).

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